Montreal-based Nortel sells managed services, integration, optimization, and security services under the Nortel Global Services banner, and employs about a third of its 30,000 workforce in the division. Like rival telecoms equipment manufacturers Lucent and Avaya, Nortel is keen to grow its recurring revenue streams from managed services projects and build its high-margin professional services activities, in order to offset pricing pressure on its product lines from Far Eastern vendors.
Nortel has now grouped its services offerings into five main areas: managed services; integration services; maintenance services; optimization services; and security services. It also revealed several new product lines including: hosted services; multi-vendor VOIP integration; subscriber quality of experience service; multi-vendor and repair services; and security consulting.
Curt Hopkins, head of business development EMEA for the Global Services division, told ComputerWire that the move is designed to give clients a simplified view of its services offerings, with which the vendor’s sales team are increasingly leading. He said: It is no longer just about tacking a little bit of services along on the back of a product sale.
Hopkins illustrated Nortel’s services-led approach with the example of the company’s new five-year deal with Indian telecoms operator Bharti Tele-Ventures to host contact center services for more than 19.7 million subscribers. Nortel will set up a Network Operations Center in New Delhi and provide network design, integration, support, and maintenance services for Bharti’s contact center architecture.
Bharti has adopted a particularly aggressive strategy to outsourcing its network infrastructure. It has awarded contracts worth $125m and $250m to Nokia and Ericsson respectively to build and support its GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks. Bharti is also working with BPO vendors TeleTech, Hinduja TMT, IBM, and Mphasis, which are staffing its contact center operations.
Nortel said it provides multi-vendor managed services to more than 100 companies and service providers including Johnson & Controls, Cable & Wireless, and Continuum Health Partners. The company has 600 staff in its managed services centers in Raleigh, North Carolina, Rochester, New York, and Maidenhead in the UK.
Both Nortel and Lucent are aiming to follow the example of IBM Corp, whose multi-vendor services division has overtaken its products business to become the bedrock of the company during the last 15 years. Nortel said clients already trust it to manage equipment from rival vendors, with non-Nortel kit accounting for some 60% of the network components currently under its management.
